On the atmosphere…
I was impressed by the atmosphere throughout the whole 90 minutes, even before the game already. I think the fans helped us over 90 minutes and not only the time when Trent [Alexander-Arnold] was on the pitch.
On whether he spoke to Alexander-Arnold…
Only short afterwards, I gave him a hug. I don’t even exactly know what I said but probably not a lot. But every time I will meet him, I will either give him a hug or talk to him because he has been very special to me as a player and as a human being.
On what he saw as the ‘common points’ between the displays against Real and Villa…
The common points, I think both teams played quite similar against us. Maybe the difference was that I told the players today that I wanted them to either press really high or go to a low block, because Vinicius and Mbappe are for so many reasons incredible players but their deep runs, timing of deep runs, their pace is next level. So don’t give away any space in behind and that’s what our last line did very well tonight.
A very solid defensive performance in both games. But it also helps if you are not one goal down or two goals down, because if you are one or two goals down you need to take extra risk, you need to force much more. And if you have to force and take extra risk then you’re sometimes a bit exposed on the other side as well. But in my opinion, in general, even the games we’ve lost, we have hardly conceded a chance, except for the set-piece goals of course we conceded.
On whether Mac Allister is getting back to his best after injury disrupted his pre-season programme…
Yes, but I don’t think he’s the only one. I just spoke about Conor Bradley, who now – I think for the first time in a long time – played twice 90 minutes in three days. The same is to be said about Macca. All the players they need a bit of time, sometimes to adjust to the Premier League, sometimes to adjust to the limited rest we’ve had and then in other leagues I think 15 to 20 games in almost any league if you are a big club are ‘easy wins’. But in the Premier League there’s never an easy win, that is something you need to adjust to as well. If you miss pre-season or if you come from a different league, or if you’re a bit younger, than these are things you need to adjust to. Conor Bradley has only played 30, 40 games for us and Macca is, after Villa and also by the way against [Crystal] Palace where he had a decent performance, he and the team are getting fitter and fitter. That is the first step we have to make for us to get results.
